When visiting Iran in 2016, I was left with a great deal of time on my hands. Seems many Iranians - especially the ones I am in contact with, like to sleep at dawn and wake up in the afternoon. As an early riser, I was often left alone with my thoughts - and so jotted down some - not in any particular order, but as if to think out loud. A diary of sorts. The current events prompted me to visit these notes. Though seems like a world away since then, but is it?
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Global Implications of US Foreign Policy
Present, Past, and Future
Current hot spots and trends:
Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Daesh, Saudi Arabia
US Goals: Total domination.
Military dominance
(includes space) , economical (incudes control of resources, renewable (oil)
and non-renewable, cultural (neo-colonialism through cultural imperialism,
media, information technology) – clearly, all of which are related.
Military domination does
not require elaboration. At the same
time, it is worth noting that the strength of the military is used to control
the international system – preferably not to engage in warfare. Controlling the international system
(dominance over oil, shipping
lanes, neo-liberal economics, etc.) enables the complete control of
allies and adversaries. It is also an
option the US uses to ‘reassure’ allies and encourages them to work with the US
in achieving American goals – often at odds with their own. Aside from the bases the US has established
around the world (many countries actually PAY the US for these bases!), the US
wants complete control of the seas.
The thinking that
‘whoever controls the waves, controls
the word’, put forward by Admiral McMahon is in full effect. During the Iran-Iraq
war" a former senior Defense
Department official observed, "'Gulf waters' now extend from the Straits
of Malacca to the South Atlantic." Nevertheless, bases nearer the Gulf had
a special importance, and Pentagon planners urged "as substantial a land presence
in the as can be managed." The Gulf states were reluctant to have too
overt a relationship with the United States, but the Iran-Iraq war served to
overcome some of this reluctance.
The
US has not ratified the United Nations Treaty on the Law of the Seas but
instead has promoted the policy of Freedom of Navigation – which really means
control of the seas, especially the world chock points..
While
we may think of this control in terms of oil, passage of finished goods and
food are equally important. This is
partially responsible for the conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Ukraine/Crimea, the
Persian Gulf, South China Sea.
Other important US foreign
policies (aside from control of the waves) are to curb Russia’s emergence as a
global player. Contain China. It
was felt that the domination of the
Heartland (Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia) would lead to the domination
of the World. To present Islam as an
enemy (and Iran), and total control of the internet (Rumsfeld 2003 Information
Operations Roadmap).
Russia: At the end of the Cold WarProminent
Americans such as Wolfowitz and (CFR)Rustow opined that it was important to
contain Russia (the Heartland – Defense Planning Guideline 1992, 1993). It was felt that the domination of Euro Asia (the land lying between Europe and Asia proper;
namely, those made up of Western and Central Russia, Belarus, Ukraine,
part of Caucasus,Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,
andKyrgyzstan) was key to the domination of the
World.
As recently as April 2015, during a speech at the
Army War College Strategy Conference, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work
elaborated on how the Pentagon plans to counter the three types of wars
supposedly being waged by Iran, Russia, and China.
Importantly, US has
subjugated its national interest to that of Israel. While initially Israel was a base for the
US, its influence has grown to the point that it dominates US. . Israel (through US
Congress) has actually succeeded in reversing the tying of aid – US firms are required to purchase from Israel about sixty
cents worth of Israeli goods for every $1 which the US provides in military
grants. And as Israel’s largest trade partner, the European Union benefits from
US aid which helps to finance its exports to Israel. (http://www.mees.com/postedarticles/finance/iraq/a46n09b01.htm
Dr. T. Stauffer was a well-respected economist and
engineer who taught at Harvard. He passed in 2005.
Its through this prism that
one needs to look at current trouble spots and the players: Saudi Arabia,
Daesh, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran.
Decades ago, the most
important commodity was considered to be oil (I share the view of many scholars
that today water is the most essential commodity). The 1973 Arab-Israeli war further
strengthened the American resolve in its determination to secure the flow of
oil to its European allies, Japan, Israel, and its own domestic use. A
renewable 15-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the U.S. and Israel
was signed in September 1975, the United States undertook to promptly make oil
available for purchase by Israel. If
Israel was unable to secure the necessary means to transport such oil to
Israel, the United States Government will make every effort to help Israel
secure the necessary means of transport – even before supplying America. After the
revolution, IRI put a stop to this and
Israel was forced to buy more expensive oil from Russia – footed by the
U.S.
In the mid
1980s, Israel was involved in talks on a
plan for an Iraq-Jordanian pipeline to the Red Sea port of Aqaba.
Given the value of oil and the
leverage the US has over its transit, America’s actions post 911 indicate that
oil has taken a back seat to other considerations. Upon
taking office, Pres. George W. Bush commissioned the Bakers Institute (Rice
University) and the Council on Foreign Relations to study the energy trends and
requirements of the 21st century.
http://www.rice.edu/energy/publications/docs/TaskForceReport_Final.pdf
The comprehensive report
recommended that not only should the administration ease its Iraqi oil-field
investment restrictions, but actions and policies should be taken to promote
the well-being of the Iraqi people which was being undermined in light of the
sanctions and the continuous bombings.
Furthermore, the report
favored the Iranian route for the Caspian oil exports which would serve several
purposes. In itself, it would translate into a policy shift towards Tehran, and
throw Iran as a counterweight to Iraq. The transport of oil through Iran versus
the prohibitively expensive longer and costly Baku-Ceyhan pipeline would be of
great benefit to the West, and the world, and help build up the drastically low
global spare capacity. Of note, the Kazakh officials had been in favor of the
Iran route, as well as the US oil companies such as Chevron, Exxon-Mobil and
Conoco.
But military –media
industrial complex trumped oil securities.
Arguably, oil and military hardware are not the only factors. (Iran deal).
WATER. A new NASA study (September 2016) finds that the recent
drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean Levant region, which
comprises Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey, is
likely the worst drought of the past nine centuries. In a May 2001
quotes Jean-Louis Sarbib, Vice President of the World Bank’s Middle East and
North Africa Region, as saying that the CIA had identified water as one of the
key issues of the 21st century.
Additionally, The primary goal of the early
Zionist leadership was to control and secure the region’s waters. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Chaim
Weizmann declared that ‘it was of vital importance not only to secure all water
resources feeding the country, but to control them at the sources – and the
development of these waters became the primary aim of the Yishuv as a whole[i]. This policy remained in place. As Israel’s
third Prime Minister Levi Eshkol put it, water was “the blood flowing through
the arteries of the nation”.
Even with the occupation of
Golan and its waters, Israel faced one of its worst droughts in 1990-91.
A second more serious drought in 1998, forced it to turn to water rich
Turkey. Turkey and Israel engaged in
serious negotiations starting in May 2000 to import 50 billion cubic meters of
fresh water from Turkey using tanker ships, but using tankers was not cost
effective for the transport of water.
Alternate plans were suggested.
In September 2000, the same year that young Bashar-al Assad
succeeded his father as President of Syria, a strategy paper entitled “The
Geopolitics of Water” by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political
Studies (IASPS) opined that "Since extensive water planning proposals will
necessitate the establishment of pipelines and energy grids stretching across
borders, a political and military structure that can ensure the safety and
security of the carriers will be the prerequisite to effective water sharing”
….. “But an effective regional system would require political-military
cooperation against Syria”.
The cooperation of the Arab states
became important.
states of Syria, Turkey and Iraq themselves
have directly conferred on the issue of sharing the water of the Tigris and
Euphrates. According to Thomas Naff, a
professor of Middle East History at Pennsylvania State University, the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers which provide Iraq with nearly 100% of its water “depend
essentially on agreements with Turkey” where both rivers originate. Turkey
disagrees over quotas to meet Syria and Iraq’s minimum requirements for what
would be the natural flow of the water and what would provide their people with
adequate access to those resources, claiming that Syria and Iraq take more than
their allotted amount of water from the rivers as compared to how much each
country contributes to the rivers’ flows.
Thus Turkey began constructing a major series of dams to control the
waters of the Tigris and Euphrates and flex their regional muscle. Iraq and Syria effectively tabled their
mutual disagreements and colluded in 1998 to resist the construction of the
Southeast Anatolia Project in Turkey.
Stephen Pelletiere, a former CIA analyst, wrote
in the New York Times that Turkey had envisioned building a Peace Pipeline
carrying water that would extend to the southern Gulf States, and as he sees
it, “by extension to Israel.” He continued by saying that “no progress has been
made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American
hands, of course, all that could change.”
And now Syria.
Myth of Israel fulfilling its water needs. Environmental law, environment, cost, and ideology.
So
in conclusion: Both Iraq and Syria and Syria are about control of the region, oil
and water, curbing Russia (Mediterranean).
One could add expansion of Israel – the Greater Israel.
Turkish Threat:
Turkey has been a conduit for arms to Daesh and smuggled oil through
Turkey to Europe (EU admitted buying oil from Daesh http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-15/petrodollar-panic-eu-officials-admit-buying-oil-isis
but the world has failed to charge Europe/NATO with state sponsor of
terrorism). McCain to Turkey to
Brookings (Iraq and Libya and Chechens).
US wanted Turkey to take a more active role in Syria (and perhaps Iraq –
opening of NATO front through Turkey).
But the Turkish people were reluctant to deploy boots in Syria. WINEP “Tuesday Changed Everything” (June 30th),
after the bombing in Istanbul, the Turkish people were more willing to deploy
boots to Syria, but Russia
effectively made northern Syria its no fly zone, meaning a no fly zone for
Turkish planes. Russia set up an air defense bubble, and the Russians are
basically flying there looking for groups of planes to shoot down in retaliation
for the November incident. So for Turkey to send in conventional troops, it
needs Russia's blessings.
The
failed coup attempt, which I believe was orchestrated with Washington and not
by Washington, had several advantages.
Erdogan's
AKP party has maxed out twice at 49.5 percent in the most recent elections of
2011 and 2015. Erdogan wants to become an executive-style president and he
wants to change the constitution
.
The coup afforded this opportunity. The
pretense of Gulen US being behind the coup, allowed for pretentious
rapprochement with Russia. Turkey
deployed boots in Syria without Russian objections.
Additionally,
there had been complaints in the US and article in The Hill, that Gulen was
opening too many religious schools, even on military basis. This would be a warning to Gulen to stop the
activities – and curb his power projection.
In
an October 6, article called “Syrian 'Plan B' Options Beyond Immediate Military Confrontation”, WINEP
suggested Taking up Turkey's offer
to expand the safe zone it established in northern Syria (with some U.S.
military support) in August.
Turkey’s
role in Iraq at the moment also shows that NATO is actively re-occupying
Iraq. Turkey’s historical claims to
Mosul and America’s cooperation in this theater, indicates that once again, the
Kurds will be sacrificed both in Syria and in Iraq. The Kurds should make note of this.
Water Diplomacy – UNESC) 2011 Arab Region
Russia and China: Necons literature predicts Russo-Sino water
disputes. US will try to disrupt
Russian-Chinese water cooperation in the coming decades.
Some
70 million cubic metres of water could be sold to China, rising to one billion
cubic metres, said Alexander Tkachev during a meeting in Beijing, but his
proposal has led to mixed reactions, including alarm from ecologists.
Altai
are Turkic people and US/Turkey will likely provoke unrest. Some even suggested color revolutions.
Altai
floodwater could be sent to parched Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China,
says Russian agriculture minister.
Perhaps
Morsi’s most serious offense was his opposition to a
dam which both Israel and Saudi
Arabia favored as they had plans to divert water from the Nile . In 2012,
it was reported that Saudi Arabia had claimed a stake
in the Nile . Israel ’s ambitions went much further back.
In the 1970s Israeli’s idea was
to convince Egypt to divert Nile water to Israel . In 1978, President
Anwar Sadat “declared in Haifa to the Israeli public that he would transfer
Nile water to the Negev . Shortly afterward, in a letter to Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin, Sadat promised that Nile water would go to Jerusalem
. During Mubarak’s presidency, published reports indicated that Israeli
experts were helping Ethiopia to plan 40 dams along the Blue Nile .”[
In
2008, the State Department identified “threat” of Iran, Islam, Euroasia ( In
1997, in his book the Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski
outlined:
“... how
America "manages" Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates
“Eurasia” would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically
productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over
“Eurasia” would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination.
“Eurasia”
accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”
Daesh:
A tool to deploy soldiers for occupation and to diminish Islam.
Even
the naming of Daesh and changing it to IS is a deliberate act to drive home
Islam and terrorism – and to liken it to IR.
Which Netanyahu readily uses.
The end of the Cold War had
left Israel in an awkward place.
According to The Jerusalem Report,
in 1991, the idea that radical Islam would replace communism had taken seed
among the Israeli right. The basis of
the idea was founded on the neoconservatives fear that with the demise of the
Soviet Union, and the splintering of the America’s right wing faction, there
would no longer be an unconditional support for a U.S.-Israel alliance. In 1993, Samuel Huntington offered the
solution, The Clash of Civilizations
based on an earlier piece by Bernard Lewis.
In
line with the neoconservative’s agenda, the
mainstream media in the US framed September 11 within the context of Islam and
Islamic terrorists. Bernard Lewis
introduced the concept of Jihad and Crusade in an opinion piece.
In
2012 it was revealed that a course for US
military officers has been teaching that America's enemy is Islam in
general and suggesting that the country might ultimately have to obliterate the
Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths,
following second world war precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. The plan suggested possible outcomes such as
"Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation ... Islam reduced to cult
status".
In
2012, in spite of warning from some military personnel, extremists were armed
in Syria. Revelations of Saudi
complicity in 2016 and the law suit, its war crimes in Yemen conducted by the
US, all are in Saudi’s demise.
The Saudis felt considerable
annoyance at the United States for doing too little to prevent the Shah’s fall
and too much to promote Sadat’s peace initiative”. This led the Saudis to drop their production
by 1 million barrels per day during the Iranian Revolution, playing havoc on
oil markets at a most crucial time (Deese and Nye 68)[ii]. Although Saudi Arabia later picked up Iran’s
slack, Washington was not prepared to have Saudi Arabia follow Iran’s suite.
Nor was Washington accustomed to having an Arab nation ‘threaten’ its oil
supply.
The
US used the Saudis as a gas station and as its gladiators. 2012 reports indicate that by the year 2030,
Saudi Arabia will be a net importer of oil due to its own ever growing
consumption. http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Saudi-Arabia-Could-Become-a-Net-Oil-Importer-by-2030.html
Saudis
fall (over the years privately and now openly) has led to the rise of UAE.
Internet:
Although the State Department refers to the threat of internet as a recruiting
tool used by adversaries, it actually
wants the US to have complete control of it.
“A 2003
Pentagon document previously classified as ‘noforn’ (not for release to foreign
nationals, including allies), this report details the US military’s information
operations, including psychological operations, electronic warfare, and
involvement in foreign journalism.” It
consists of effectively communicating U.S. Government (USG) capabilities and
intentions as an important means of combating the plans of adversaries. The
ability to rapidly disseminate persuasive information to diverse audiences in
order to directly influence their decision-making is an increasingly powerful means
of deterring aggression.”
Bascially, “The integrated employment of the core capabilities of
Electronic Warfare, Computer Network Operations, Psychological Operations,
Military Deception and Operations Security, in concert with specified
supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp
adversarial human and automated decisions-making while protecting our own.”
But
they soon learnt this is not a one way street.
Adversaries had capabilities that challenged the supremacy.
Moreover,
expertise in computer technology and warfare did not require finances that
would otherwise debilitate a country.
In other words, the plan actually helped even out the battle field
instead of owning it. But the US still
owns access – the World Wide Web
Extent
of hacking, imagined and real, is to curb and control the internet? Censor
information.
Yemen: Falls in the category of control of
waterways. Importantly, the control of
Bab-el Mandeb.
Cultural Imperialism/neo-colonialism
- This is spread through the media
(including the internet) multinational companies, text (books), universities,
and student exchanges. Once an
indigenous person is educated and returns to native country, the feeling of
inferiority felt in the West is taken home and applied towards own people. The West or colonial powers, are not only
disruptive where culture is concerned, but in creating a gap between the
peoples of the same country.
Value
of (Iranian) bloggers
Iran.
Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama
UANI
AIPAC sponsored WINEP
Aga Khan Foundation
AmCham Abu Dhabi - American Chamber of
Commerce
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Chevron Corporation
Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art (DDFIA)
Dr. Scholl Foundation
Exxon Mobile Corporation
Ford Foundation
German Marshall Fund
Global Intellectual Property Center
Henry Luce Foundation
Oak Foundation
Ploughshares Fund
Qatar Foundation International
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Smith Richardson Foundation
Stuart Family Foundation
The Diana Davis Spencer Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation
The National Endowment for the Humanities
The Starr Foundation
The U.S. Agency for International Development
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Turkish Airlines
Una Chapman Cox Foundation
United States Department of State
United States Institute of Peace
TR: "Democracy has
justified itself by keeping for the white race the best portion's of the
earth's surface." The first
governor-general of the Philippines, General Arthur MacArthur, father of Douglas,
mirrored these ideas when he claimed that "America's wonderful thrust into
Asia was the destiny of the magnificent Aryan people."
Senator Beveridge (1901) :
God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a
thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-admiration. No, he has made
us the master organizers of the world...that we may administer government among
savages and senile peoples...the Philippines are ours forever...and just beyond
the Philippines lie China's illimitable markets...We will not renounce our part
inthe mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the
world...China is our natural customer. The Philippines give us a base at the
door of the East...it has been charged that our conduct of the war has been
cruel. Senators, it has been the reverse. Senators, remember that we are not
dealing with Americans or Europeans. We are dealing with Orientals.
[i] Jan Selby, “Water, Power & Politics in the Middle East; The
Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
[ii] Deese, David A. and Joseph S. Nye, Ibid
